Problems with an older burner

I've been trying for the better part of two hours to get a Mitsumi 4x8, model CR-4801TE running on my system, but with little luck.

Every time I start burning, no matter the burning program, or the options selected (speed, DAO/DAO96/TAO) the burn process freezes at anywhere between 3% and 10%.

I've updated both Nero and Alcohol, tried different speeds and modes, tried different kinds of media and different types of files (avi, ogg, mp3) and any combination of the above with no luck.

The firmware on the drive is 2.03, which is the most recent (if you can call 1998 recent). The versions of Nero and Alcohol I'm using are the most recent, too. My Win2k is also completely up to date.

The drive will read CDs just fine. It just won't write them w/o dying.

I'm running this as a slave drive, on the same chain as my DVD-ROM drive (an LG drive). My motherboard is a DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity w/ the 11/28 Hellfire BIOS. Processor is an AMD M-Barton 2500+ @ 2500Mhz (12.5*200). I'm also running 1024 MB of RAM.

If anybody could shed some light on this, it would most definately be appreciated.

i've got the same exact problem with my NEC 2500A burner. It was working just fine. Windows then crashed and I cannot burn CD-R's, just dvd-r's.

I've got a Lite-on 20x cdrw gets top about 60% everytime then everything locks up and you need to shut down the system its worked fine for a long them then just started doing that a while back, I pitched it and bought a brand new 52x LG for $29 CND and no more problems. I have no clue why it did that but with the price of cdrw's nowaday I don't find it worth bothering to fuss with them.

Have you guys tried flashing to different firmware? I know you're using the latest firmware, Oni, but flashing to an earlier version might fix your problem.

I had that problem too. But the drive only refused to work in windows. it would burn fine in linux.

if you have two drives try popping a copy of knoppix in and using k3b.

Thanks for the suggestion, 9mm, but it doesn't really fix my problem.

I will try it however.

Did you try it out as a master and the ONLY drive on the chain?

sounds like a windows problem. have you tried uninstalling the drives, physically unplugging them ,and then reinstalling stuff (mobo drivers)... just might work.

so, uninstall the mobo drivers, disconnect the drives, boot up into windwos without the drives, reinstall drives, boot into windows and try burning, then reinstall mobo drivers.

J-Mag said:

Did you try it out as a master and the ONLY drive on the chain?

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I was thinking of trying that next, actually.

I did a complete Windows format and installed everything from scratch and I still ahve the same problem. Could the laser have died?

well, maybe you can overvolt the laser so it reads better (I had to do this to my PS2 to make it read CDs)

Well, I booted up Knoppix Linux, and the burner works just fine and dandy w/ K3b, so there's pro'lly some latent drivers in Windows or something that it's getting hung on.

I'ma check out the MSKB and see if that turns up anything.

Oni said:

Well, I booted up Knoppix Linux, and the burner works just fine and dandy w/ K3b, so there's pro'lly some latent drivers in Windows or something that it's getting hung on.

I'ma check out the MSKB and see if that turns up anything.

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Yeah its weird.

I ended up getting fed up and buying a new one. Gave my drive to a FreeBSD user and he was happy.

Checked the MSKB and didn't dredge up anything. Checked the Win2k HCL and it's on there as a supported drive, so that's not it.

I'm leaning towards my chipset drivers or maybe my BIOS. I'll play around w/ those tomorrow.

OK, I got the problem fixed. I did some forum hopping and I read something about VIA boards having issues or something. What I did was in the device manager I uninstalled the cd burner drivers then I uninstalled the IDE/ATAPI controller drivers. BTW The IDE driver that was installed was an Nvdia based controller. SO when I rebooted it installed regular generic windows IDE controllers and I burned a few cd's so far. I will test burn some more later. Hope that helps

I'll try that out!

N1vek215 said:

OK, I got the problem fixed. I did some forum hopping and I read something about VIA boards having issues or something. What I did was in the device manager I uninstalled the cd burner drivers then I uninstalled the IDE/ATAPI controller drivers. BTW The IDE driver that was installed was an Nvdia based controller. SO when I rebooted it installed regular generic windows IDE controllers and I burned a few cd's so far. I will test burn some more later. Hope that helps

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You sir, are my personal hero.

It works great now. Thanks for the help everyone!